Google To Invest Up To $1 Billion In India's Bharti Airtel

New Delhi: As part of its Google for India digitsation fund, Bharti Airtel on Friday announced that the latter will invest up to $1billion in the telecom major.

The deal includes Google investing $700 million to acquire 1.28 percent ownership in Airtel and up to $3oo million towards potential multi-year commercial agreements.

"Airtel and Google share the vision to grow India's digital dividend through innovative products. With our future ready network, digital platforms, last mile distribution and payments ecosystem, we look forward to working closely with Google to increase the depth and breadth of India's digital ecosystem," Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel said.

Under the larger strategic goals of the partnership, both companies will also potentially co-create India-specific network domain use cases for 5G and other standards, with cutting-edge implementations.

Airtel is already using Google's 5G-ready Evolved Packet Core & Software Defined Network platforms, and plans to explore scaling up the deployment of Google's network virtualisation solutions to deliver a superior network experience to their customers.

The $300 million amount will go towards implementing commercial agreements, which will include investments in scaling Airtel's offerings that covers a range of devices to consumers via innovative affordability programs as well as other offerings aimed at accelerating access and digital inclusion across India's digital ecosystem.

Both companies will also focus on shaping and growing the cloud ecosystem in India to accelerate their digital transformation journeys.

Airtel serves over one million small and medium businesses with its enterprise connectivity offering, and this partnership will help accelerate digital adoption.

"Airtel is a leading pioneer shaping India's digital future, and we are proud to partner on a shared vision for expanding connectivity and ensuring equitable access to the Internet for more Indians," said Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.

"Our commercial and equity investment in Airtel is a continuation of our Google for India Digitization Fund's efforts to increase access to smartphones, enhance connectivity to support new business models, and help companies on their digital transformation journey," he added.

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